


No Choice

by lilsmartass



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Dark, Extended Scene, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 15:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/516847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilsmartass/pseuds/lilsmartass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Written for the forced participation square on my dark bingo card. Why Alec betrayed Max back at Manticore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Choice

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: PG-13 for dark themes.  
> Disclaimer: I don’t own the Dark Angel characters. Dialogue you recognise comes directly from episode 2x01 Designate This.   
> Warning/Spoilers: Spoilers for episode 2x01 Designate This. Mentions of torture and non-consensual situations, although nothing is graphically depicted here.   
> Genre: Hurt/comfort, dark, friendship

“Nobody’s using me,” 494 lies with a slight smirk and a shake of his head, refusing to take his eyes from hers, hiding the lie behind the ever-present sarcasm in his jade eyes.

“That’s what you don’t get,” she says, replacing the metal slat she had been using a chisel and standing. It’s almost worse that she doesn’t smirk, that she doesn’t sound condescending. She means every word she is saying, the earnestness in her eyes is almost painful to look at, though her tone is resigned. She doesn’t expect him to listen. “”You’re working for the bad guys.”

It is all 494 can do to keep his thoughts off his face so with a slight grimace he turns away. He knows, he knows more than she can ever possibly imagine.

*

He hadn’t expected to like her. 599’s little band of escapees have been the bane of his existence almost as far back as he can remember. The six months in psy-ops after 493’s, no, what did they call him? _Ben’s_ murder spree is only the tip of the ice berg. The really large unpleasant ice berg of what he has endured at Manticore’s hands. If he didn’t think it would land him back in one of their testing units he’d explain the flaws in their technique to him. They’ve pushed him too far to believe it is all for his own good, and not quite far enough to break him. If he could be certain of support, it would be a fatal error.

Like the rest of their unit, for a long time, he had hated 599 and his little band for leaving. Betrayers. Traitors. Deserters. They had all been punished, the leash tightened so Manticore could be sure there wouldn’t be another attempt. But the twins had gotten the worst of it, and ultimately, in the secret places of his heart that, perfect soldier though he strived to be in their eyes, even his superiors didn’t get to see, he had hated them for not taking him with them.

And the worst of it was that it is still happening. Still happening, right in front of her nose and she still couldn’t see it. “This isn’t exactly a plum assignment for me,” he had said, angrily, the first time they met when she had been so horrified at being his breeding partner and he’d been so sure she would have seen _something_ in his eyes that he’d tried to turn it around, and make it a joke about catching something. It wasn’t true though, he’d already caught it. In the eyes of his superiors, in the eyes of his comrades, he was already tainted. A traitor just waiting to happen. That was why he’d been paired with her. So as not to risk a pure soldier, and so the others would know that he was less than a pure soldier himself.

It wasn’t even the humiliation that burned inside him which stung the most, though that was like acid. It was the revulsion. _He didn’t want to do this._ Like the others, he had sat through numerous sessions on interrogation methods. They’d even had practical classes, and he’d aced it, he’d done better than everyone else and seen the glittering approval in Director Renfro’s eyes as she watched him try to prove his loyalty by carving someone’s secrets out of them. Sexual torture had been part of it too, a man might withstand pain, but the shame and fear of being violated in that matter would break them wide open, but he’d become so proficient at physical torture, no matter how sick it made him, that he’d never needed to stoop to those tactics.

And he’d worked hard at being a chameleon, at being what people wanted and expected him to be. He’d worked hard at being to charm and trick information out of others. He’d done so because even if it meant deep cover missions with their painful and degrading rehabilitations to assure their superiors that they were still loyal soldiers, it meant never having to be part of an interrogation team.

So her instinctive refusal of him makes him feel ill. It’s not even worry about having to force himself on her, it’s that he _agrees_. He had been so sure that Rachel had been just a fluke, so sure that they’d all been wrong about him, but she says no and here he is, not contemplating if he should, but knowing that he will, disobey orders. His stomach clenches at the knowledge of what they will do to him if they find out. When they find out. They always find out. 599 made sure there would never be any secrets here again.

He lies in ranks, unable to bear what they might do to him in front of the others if he confesses here. “Successful copulation between myself and X5-452, ma’am. Twice.” He knows Renfro hates her way more than she hates him and he is proven right when Renfro never even questions his slightly bragging tone, never so much as glances at him, choosing instead to mock 452 about infidelity. His heart clenches further. She had someone else, a life, a future, happiness and she came back to try and help them and lost it all, and Manticore thinks of them as nothing more than whores or breeding cows.

Max doesn’t answer, doesn’t react and when they are dismissed he jogs after Renfro. “May I have a word ma’am?” he asks respectfully.

She turns and eyes him up and down and it’s all he can do to keep from flushing under the contempt in her eyes. “What is it 494?”

He looks at her guards. “Alone?” he requests.

“No,” her answer is quick and biting and his flush deepens.

“We didn’t...X5-452 and I...we didn’t...”

“Didn’t copulate? You _lied_ to me 494?”

He takes a step back at her ferocity, unmitigated fear in his eyes now. “No! Well yes, but I have her trust now ma’am. I know you’re still working on the reconditioning process and this way I thought- ”

“You’re offering to betray one of your own?”

He pulls himself up straighter. If he could be certain of support...but he can’t be. He’d have 452, maybe, if she believed he wasn’t leading her into a trap, and no one else and the two of them cannot fight the might of Manticore alone, and he cannot endure any more rehabilitation himself. “The regulations state that if any member of the unit has reason to believe that another member of the unit has been corrupted by the enemy and is working against the unit in any way they must take all precautions to ensure that the corrupted member’s attempts are unsuccessful,” he reels off. “I am doing it for the good of the unit ma’am.” He meets her eyes squarely, ignoring the shame he feels and the little voice in his heart telling him he is as much a traitor as 493 ever was.

The Director smiles and he breathes a sigh of relief. He has pleased her, which means his lie is not going to land him back in psy-ops. “Do you sleep 494?”

“Not much ma’am. I don’t require it.”

“Very good. You’ll meet me after each one of your breeding sessions with 452 and you’ll tell me every observation you have made about her.”

He nods crisply, “Yes ma’am.”

“I mean everything 494; every quirk, every gesture. If you miss anything at all I will assume you have been corrupted by her just as the others were.”

“Everything ma’am, I understand,” he says, hiding how fast his heart is beating from fear.

She pivots on her heel. “See you tonight 494.”

*

“Forget we had a date?” he asks as 452 levers herself out from under the bed, through the tunnel that she must have been scraping away at virtually since she arrived.  

She blanches with fear, the same fear that he knows was in his eyes when he cut his deal with Renfro. “So when did the stormtroopers bust in?”

He forces himself to laugh lightly but he can’t hold her fearful gaze, “Don't worry. I didn't set off the alarm. Not yet,” he reassures, which is true. He won’t see Renfro for another few minutes.

It doesn’t take the fear out of her eyes, if anything, it only increases it. “What do you want?”

He hates that look on her. On she who was strong enough to escape here and come back to try, futilely, to help them all. He hates even more what might be going through her head to put it there; wonders if she thinks he’s going to order her onto the cot to fulfil their orders, wonders if she really thinks so little of him before realising that she has no reason not to. She doesn’t socialise with the others. She doesn’t realise how tainted he is. His veneer of perfect soldier probably works on her, which is ironic really, as she’s probably the only person here who respects the deep well of insidious loathing inside his very soul for the people here. “I'm not looking for trouble,” he sooths as best he can, all the while knowing he’ll be betraying her in just a few minutes time because he knows he can’t stand what they will do to him if he does not. “What you do is your own business.” 

Since it is the only help he can give her, he holds the bunk out of the way, and though the distrust in her eyes doesn’t lessen, she accepts his help and kneels to slot the bricks back into the wall. “Why do you want out of here so much? You've got a roof over your head, plenty to eat...which is more than you can say about most people out there.”

“You think Manticore takes care of you out of the goodness of its heart? It's using you.”

“Nobody’s using me,” 494 lies with a slight smirk and a shake of his head, refusing to take his eyes from hers, hiding the lie behind the ever-present sarcasm in his jade eyes.

“That’s what you don’t get,” she said, replacing the metal slat she had been using a chisel and standing. It’s almost worse that she doesn’t smirk, that she doesn’t sound condescending. She means every word she is saying, the earnestness in her eyes is almost painful to look at, though her tone is resigned. She doesn’t expect him to listen. “”You’re working for the bad guys.”

It is all 494 can do to keep his thoughts off his face so with a slight grimace he turns away. He knows, he knows more than she can ever possibly imagine.

They replace the bunk. “I'm gonna be out of here in five minutes to go back to my cell, and you'll get rid of me for the night. Okay, 452?”

“My name's Max,” she says, challengingly. Telling him the only way she can, that his efforts to dissuade her from escape haven’t worked. She’s lucky, she didn’t live through his childhood, she still thinks of herself as a person not a weapon.

“Whatever you say,” he smirks, hiding what she might be able to read on his face behind it.

“You should have a name too.”

It is all he can do not to recoil. He folds his arms in a feeble gesture of protection. “I told you, my designation's 494.” He doesn’t even dare to think about what will happen if they find out he has a name. He doesn’t even dare think about what will happen if he allows himself to think that she cares about him, cares about him like she must have cared about her brothers and sisters to give them names and make them real. They all know what 599 did for her. It’s held up as an example of poor tactics and leading with emotions, not with your knowledge of how wage and win a battle. It’s held up as a failure. But after everything he’s been through here, 494 thinks that there’s very little he wouldn’t give to have just one person care for him like that.

“Doesn't suit you,” she says, and he frowns, not really understanding what she means. “I'm gonna call you Alec.”

“Alec?” he repeats. Tasting his name for the first time.

“As in smart aleck,” she mocks, but gently.

It makes him grin, and he strives, valiantly to conceal how truly _joyful_ he is, to make this just another joke. “I can live with that.”

“Good,” she says, a sarcastic smile of her own forming now, “'Cause my second choice was Dick.”

He frowns slightly, not really hurt, more puzzled at the fact that he holds her escape in his hands, he holds whether or not she is taken for some extremely painful rehabilitation procedures in his hands, and still, she isn’t afraid of him. That thought lightens his heart considerably, despite what he saw in her eyes earlier she isn’t afraid of him.

“Guard,” he calls. The guard opens the door and as he walks out he half turns to give her a bright smile, “See you around...Max,” he says, lingering over her name. _Damn it. He hadn’t meant to actually_ like _her._

As he goes to meet Renfro, he struggles to remind herself that she left him here. It is 599’s fault and it is Max’s fault that he had to suffer what he suffered here. It is Max’s fault for coming back that he has been brought to this decision. But he can’t make himself believe it, can’t stop himself thinking of her as Max instead of by designation either.

He enters Renfro’s office and stands at stiff attention as she paces around him. “Report 494.”

“Unsuccessful copulation ma’am.”

“That is not why you are here. Stop wasting my time and tell me what I want to know. Or do you need some rehabilitation of your own?”

The muscles of his shoulders draw even tighter, but his face doesn’t change. “She has an escape tunnel under her bed. I had a brief look before she returned, it leads down into the cellars, where the anomalies are housed. She’s probably just looking for a way out; she’ll be ready to leave in 24 hours, 48 maximum.”

“Very interesting. Anything else?”

For a mere fraction of a second he contemplates confessing. It’ll be easier on him if he plays this off as her attempts at recruiting, but he can’t. He’s giving Renfro Max; he can’t give her his name too. It is the lifeline he can cling onto to remember the himself he might have been. “Nothing ma’am.”

She nods. She has no reason to disbelieve him, not now.

“Your orders ma’am?” he asks, throat dry. He’s a trained assassin and he has Max’s trust. He knows what he’s going to be asked to do.

“Help her escape.”

“Huh?” is all he manages. She glares at him. “Sorry, yes ma’am,” but curiosity is still blazing through his soul and he can’t help but ask, “but...may I ask why?”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” answers Renfro, making the simple sentence sound like a threat.

Alec tries to wipe the questions from his eyes, “Yes ma’am.”

“But,” she continues, “since I will need you to track her, you may as well know. She will lead us to Eyes Only, and he’s caused more than enough trouble lately.”

Alec can tell by her tone that this Eyes Only is the boyfriend she accused Max of having that day in ranks and his stomach clenches at the thought of turning Max into what she has always been accused of being. A traitor.

Renfro is shuffling through papers on her desk, which s probably for the best, because it means she’s not looking at his face. “Report to me tomorrow, before meeting with 452. I’ll meet with my tactical team and discuss options and have orders for you then.”

He hesitates, and this time she does look up. Her steely glare, steadfastedly on him. “Problem 494?”

For a second longer he wavers, then he swallows and shakes his head. He’s one of them, and participation in this will confirm it. He’ll never be sent to psy-ops again. “No problem ma’am,” he answers. “Report to you before receiving my orders to help 452 escape then follow her back to Eyes Only and take him out before retrieving her for rehabilitation here.”

She comes out from behind her desk. “Very good 494.”

He nods. He still feels choked with his decision, but knows even now that he will follow her orders to the letter. He has no choice. He salutes crisply, “Yes ma’am,” he says, and leaves to head back to the barracks.


End file.
